Adventures In Life

Life

Friday, June 24, 2011

Another summer out sailing on our beautiful boat "Life". However, this year I've decided to use Facebook to publish updates for our friends rather than this old blog. Facebook has some advantages that this blog doesn't, the most important of which is that Facebook interfaces with our SPOT satellite transmitter, so we can post position updates on Facebook even if we're nowhere near a port with internet access.

If you're interested in receiving sailing updates, send me a Facebook friend request. My profile is http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000612342684. Once you're on my Facebook friend list then you'll be able to see all the photos, videos, and other updates that we'll be sending out this summer.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Well folks, summer is now over for Judie and me. The time has come to leave our precious Life behind (at least for this year) and move on to whatever AfterLife there might be waiting for us. We've now put the boat into dry storage in a boat yard in the Bahamas. It'll sit there until next summer.

Here's a photo of the boat in the place that'll be her home until next June.

The thin stands that you see supporting the boat are just temporary. The people at the boat yard are going to custom make a "cradle" to support the boat more securely in case a hurricane blows through there.

The next picture (below) shows how they lifted her up out of the water and put her on those stands. That big frame with crane-like lifting arms is called a "Travel Lift". The people put some heavy duty straps under the boat, attached them to the arms of the travel lift, lifted the boat out of the water and then drove it over to where the stands were waiting.

Judie and I are now in Florida. We're taking a few days of vacation from our vacation and then we'll head home to Utah after that. Here's a picture of the balcony of our hotel room. We've found that those lounge chairs are a great place to relax, catch up on some blogging, and just enjoy the ocean breeze.

Maybe Judie and I will do a "cleanup blog entry" or two after this present entry, in order to fill you in on some details that we left out of previous blogs, or maybe this will be our last entry for this year. I don't know.

The golf cart gave us the freedom to explore most of the island. Durring our travels we discovered many dead ends. However, if you are persistent enough and go down enough roads you just might end up at a pretty little beach and have it all to yourself.

Wasn't Us

Docking a 42 foot sailboat has its challenges, especially when the" crew" is inexperienced. While it is true that we've left our "mark" on the Bahamas, I promise that it was not us who mangled this dock.

I suspect it was the ferry fleeing in the background.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Dogs

While we were wandering back to the dinghy I notice two dogs hanging out. It was a warm day and one of the dogs decided that a cool swim would be in order. Right into the sea he went. Soon all you could see was his nose and his tail. When he came out he saw me watching him and in three shakes of a puppy's tail he and his buddy were by our side.

They decided to escort us all the way back to the dinghy. It was a good thing too as there were fearsome creatures about the island and no one knows what might have happened to us without our canine escort.

The Internet service we purchased for our time in the Bahamas seemed promising. Outer Island Internet, sounded REAL good. However, the this has to talk to the that and if the other has its back turned things just don't work out as planned. Needless to say we didn't always have Internet access.

We are in Florida now and the Internet gods do seem to be smiling upon us so I'll do a bit of catching up.

That's the best you got?

As we were leaving Marsh Harbour we saw a small squall and decided to motor out of its path. Seeing the puny boat trying to escape, it began the chase and soon caught up to us. It was awesome watching the line of the storm approach. It pelted our boat briefly and passed on its way. Doug looked to the heavens and asked, "That's the best you got?"

It wasn't. The storm came back with a vengeance. A waterfall fell from the bimini to the seat cushions, gushing from the down spout beneath the seat cushions to form a turbulent mass swirling about Doug's feet before descending through the drain on the cockpit floor.

It rained and rained and rained. Doug looked like a drowned rat at the helm and she who did not mock the gods found shelter under the dodger.

Eventually the rains ceased and we continued our outing.

Fishing on the ocean

We went out the Man-o-War cut leaving the Sea of Abaco behind to fish in the ocean. We pulled a line behind the boat but there was little chance of catching a fish. The winds were wonderful and it would have taken a very fast, suicidal fish to chase down the hook as we had the boat over 8 knots on occasion .

Green Turtle Cay

We picked up a mooring ball in the Black Sound Harbour near evening and were relaxing on deck when I heard a very distinctive sound. Very near the boat I saw a fin disappear beneath the water. Doug and I got to see a pod of dolphins coming into the harbour for the evening.

Pineapples

We took the dinghy over to the settlement of New Plymouth and rented a golf cart. We were on a quest to find the restaurant Pineapples. Following the signs we left the paved road and dodged pot holes when we could and bounced about the seat when we couldn't. Every time we were certain that we were on the wrong road, a pineapple shaped sign would appear encouraging us to continue.

We finally arrived. Plunked ourselves down at the bar and were promptly ignored. Eventually we were acknowledged. She brought us our cokes and took our order. Thoughtful lady that she was she BLASTED the music and Doug and I were driven from the dry comfort of the bar stool the the wet seat of a picnic table. We did eventually get our food, and I do mean eventually. If this is the way she treats clients, I never, ever want to get on her bad side!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

For the past several weeks I've been trying to find a way to describe to all of you how astoundingly beautiful the underwater scenery is here, but without success. I finally now have some photographs to share with you. However even they can't come close to capturing the incredible beauty that's underneath the waves here. But anyway, here they are...

This first one was taken in one of the many many caves that criss-cross the big reef in the Fowl Cay area. There are hundreds of thousands of tiny silver fish that make the cave their home. It's an amazing experience to swim through the middle of this school of fish, especially when it's in a cave or a big crevasse.

The next picture is a photo of me swimming through one of those schools of silver fishes. Obviously I didn't take the photo. In fact, I didn't take any of the photos you'll see in today's blog. I was with a dive tour company and the dive master had an underwater camera. (Judie will snorkel with me, but she's not quite willing yet to try scuba. Maybe I'll get her to do it next year... Or maybe not.)

And here's yet another one of me. This time (in the photo below, not the one above) I'm not in the cave. I'm just swimming through a coral area. The coral wasn't nearly as dense in this photo as it was in other places. Many of the places are composed of huge regions of densely packed corals of all different types. I really wish I could show you a picture of those, but the dive master didn't take any pictures there. So you'll just have to settle for this one. (I really need to get myself a good underwater camera. I've tried those cheapies that you use once and then throw away, but the pictures never come out good at all. )

By the way... in case anybody's curious... Yesterday Judie and I decided to return to the main metropolis here in Marsh Harbor. We had planned to go somewhere else, but the outboard motor on our dinghy died yet again so we changed our plans. We came back here (to the "big city") in order to have the outboard engine repaired. While we were here I decided to hook up with the dive tour company to do some more scuba diving while Judie just relaxed on our boat.

The outboard engine for the dinghy is now repaired, so tomorrow Judie and I will head off again. We're thinking to go out relatively far from the islands this time to do some deep-sea fishing (pulling a lure behind the boat while we sail along). However, we might not. We'll see what happens and we'll update you later.